


The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side

by Atalan



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Feelings, First Kiss, M/M, Memory Loss, One Shot, Stars, Yearning, angel!Crowley, heaven is a place with shitty music, sort of au but not quite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 15:03:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,934
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19359376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Atalan/pseuds/Atalan
Summary: Aziraphale is sure this isn't right. He's sure he remembers wisps from a world that hasn't been made yet: a bookshop and a restaurant and a park and... someone else. But this is Heaven, before the Beginning. How can he possibly remember anything? How can he possibly feel like he's lost everything?One shot, sort-of-AU, mostly made of stars and feels. It's been a very long time since something burned its way out of me like this.





	The Mirror Crack'd From Side to Side

_Are you there, sweetheart? Do you know me? Is this microphone live?_  
 _Let me do it right for once,_  
 _for the record, let me make a thing of cream and stars that becomes,_  
 _you know the story, simply heaven._  
\- 'A Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out', Richard Siken

The hall of Heaven is silver and pearl and gold and marble, filigree spun like frost, columns smooth and slender as ice. It's thronged with angels, laughing, singing, talking, celebrating. There's much to celebrate. Today is the day they start making the world.

Aziraphale knows there's nothing to mark him as different from the others. His robe and wings are just as white, and if he's a little less adorned than some (Gabriel with his violet eyes, Uriel with her gold-leaf gilding), he's still clearly of the Host, still clearly of Heaven.

He feels like an outsider, clinging to the walls of this gathering, looking around in bewilderment.

It's all wrong, and he doesn't know why. He can remember the Beginning, an eternity ago and just a moment past. There has never been anything but this, silver and pearl and gold and marble, angels laughing, angels singing. The harp strings drop notes like crystal. Angelic voices soar in perfect harmony. It is the most beautiful sound that has ever existed, except in his mind he hears strings and horns, a chorus of imperfect voices creating something better than perfection.

He wonders if he's flawed, if something went wrong with his creation. Even to think it feels like blasphemy. God does not let things _go wrong_.

Does She? He feels like things went wrong, before...

But there is no _before_. There has only ever been this. And Aziraphale feels like he's stifling in the clear cool air, like he's a butterfly trapped under glass (what is a butterfly? why would anyone think of trapping one?). There is a grief in him that has no point of origin, a sense of loss that shakes him to his core, a yearning that he cannot name.

He begins to make his way around the edges of the great hall, hoping to avoid notice, but unable to keep himself from searching every face he sees for... something. Familiarity? But they are all familiar, all part of one great unified Host, unsullied and unriven.

(He catches sight of a tall figure on the far side of the room, the glow of him even brighter than the sea of light that surrounds him. _Morningstar_ , he thinks, and something shivers in his stomach, and another name trembles in his thoughts, and he looks away and hurries on.)

Michael catches his eye and gifts him a small, perfect smile. Aziraphale tries to smile back, but there's a snarl somewhere in his throat, a flash of anger so intense it makes his hands shake. He sees a way out of the hall, a tall window leading to a balcony, and dives towards it like a minnow seeking shelter from the teeth of a pike.

(But there is no water yet, no minnow, no pike, no reason to be afraid.)

The balcony is occupied, and for a moment Aziraphale thinks to leave, until the angel leaning on the balustrade turns his head, and his profile in the light of the newly-crafted moon stops Aziraphale's heart (he doesn't have a heart, not yet, not in this celestial body, but what else to call this sensation, like everything in him has ceased to have meaning, like time itself has come to a screeching halt?)

The other angel's wings are broad and white, just like Aziraphale's, and that isn't right, they should be black, as dark as the empty sky behind the moon, the black of ravens and rooks and jackdaws, birds that look at you with bright, intelligent eyes. As he turns, they should catch the silver moonlight and flash with iridescence, more colours than there are in the world, greens and blues and reds and purples, like the surface of a soap bubble or the depths of mother-of-pearl.

But they are white, like every other angel's, and his eyes are golden as he looks questioningly over his shoulder, a deep, rich yellow like the evening sun (there isn't a sun yet, why does he remember a sun), and his hair tumbles red as rust, as russet, as embers in the depths of a fire, a moment away from blazing to life.

Their eyes meet. Aziraphale shudders from the impact, a thousand thousand moments swirling in his mind, impossible things, and a longing so intense it is almost pain, a yearning that pulls him like a tide. He takes a halting step forward as the stranger turns toward him like someone has tugged on a string tied to his heart, his golden eyes stricken, expression stunned and lost as he maps Aziraphale's face with his glowing gaze.

"I know you," he says.

"Yes," Aziraphale replies.

A pause.

"Aziraphale," says the stranger, and it's like the sun coming up, like warmth and light and joy bursting through every part of Aziraphale's being, like delight after an eternity of sorrow.

"Crowley," he replies.

The stranger frowns.

"No, that's not my name."

The light goes out of Aziraphale like a candle in a gust of wind.

"It's not?"

The stranger glances away, out at the starless sky and the brand new, flawless silver moon.

"Firien," he says. "My name is Firien."

It's a beautiful name, in the tongue of angels, a name that weaves together _fire_ and _star_ and _the cleverness of making_ , and it's wrong, wrong, wrong, and Aziraphale thinks he might weep, here in Heaven where a tear has never been shed.

"Are you sure?" he stammers.

Crowley - Aziraphale can't think of him as Firien - shoots him a look of incredulity that is so achingly familiar it reverberates through Aziraphale's bones.

"Of course I'm sure, it's my name, isn't it?"

And yet, he doesn't sound sure. There's a trace of uncertainty. The corner of his mouth downturned. He turns away as if to hide it, leans back on the balustrade, looking out at the sky.

Aziraphale wants to turn and leave, run away from all these discordant notes that don't fit right, but instead he drifts closer. Gravity, he thinks, we just invented that, didn't we? This force that seems so slight yet draws the heavenly bodies together in their dance.

"It's rather beautiful, isn't it?" he says after a moment, looking up at the moon.

"I don't know. Gaudy, if you ask me," Crowley replies. "Have you seen the plans for the rest of it? Stars, that's where all the craftsmanship is going to come in, stars and galaxies and constellations, I've got my eye on a nebula or two--"

He stops suddenly, like someone unused to speaking freely, like he's been struck by the memory of old pain.

Aziraphale finds himself leaning on the balustrade, his wing almost touching Crowley's, standing side by side and looking out over the firmament. He wants to reach out and lay his hand over Crowley's long, clever fingers. He wants to ask why his wings are white, why the pupils of his eyes are round, why he thinks he has a different name. He wants to seize him by the cloth of his robe and say, _do you remember? do you remember when it wasn't like this? do you see soft light and old books and comfort when you close your eyes?_

Instead, he says, "Tell me about the stars."

* * *

Aziraphale is not a maker of things. He wasn't created for it: his purpose is to catalogue, collect, combine. They send him ideas, brand new concepts for a brand new world, and he sorts them, groups them, threads them onto strings of meaning. He's always loved it (has he? how long has it been, really?) but now he finds himself drawn away from his work, his feet seeking out another part of Heaven.

The forge of stars is titanic and as black as the night it will soon displace. From some angles it looks like a hand, fingers outstretched and grasping; from others it more resembles a breaking wave. The first stars have already been placed in the velvet night: Rigel, Vega, Arcturus, Altair. Crowley dismisses them. It's easy to make a single bright point of light, he says, far more complex to weave the constellations and paint the sky with the stardust.

He takes pride in his creations, a blazing, brilliant pride that is too pure to ever be a sin. Aziraphale watches him, clever fingers spinning starstuff, golden eyes alight with excitement. He's not like the other angels, serene in their acts of creation, carefully examining each one for flaws. Crowley paints with fire and carves with light and he loves each and every star he sets in the sky even as he forgets it and moves eagerly onto the next. He leaves the flaws where they are, accepting their necessity, impatient to try something new. His stars are beautiful in their imperfections. Some pulse, some shift their colour, some spin in ways that mirror Aziraphale's heart, as he watches Crowley work.

"Here," Crowley says suddenly, holding out a handful of hydrogen, swirling fiercely on the point of collapse. "You try it."

"Me?" Aziraphale looks at his own fingers, so awkward compared to Crowley's, and shakes his head. "Oh no, I couldn't possibly. I was made for--"

"Who cares what you were made for?" Crowley says, a sharpness in his smile, a knowing in his eyes, something haunted behind it all. "Try it."

Aziraphale tries, but it slips and swirls away from his grasp, like trying to weave a cobweb into cotton.

"I don't think--"

"Relax." Crowley reaches out, his hands guiding Aziraphale's, long fingers gently twining with his. "Like this."

His face is lit by the glow of the birthing star, his hands are warm from its heat, his tongue flicks out just briefly, nervously, to touch his lips, as he glances at Aziraphale, as if asking permission (far too late). Aziraphale can only gaze helplessly back, tracing the lines of him, the sharpness and the softness he tries to hide (why does he hide it? what is he afraid of?), the eyes the world never gets to see because they're hidden so often behind smoked glass and sarcasm...

The star between them flares and pulses and leaps like Aziraphale's heart. It's whirling too fast, its forces cannot hold it together. It tears itself into three pieces, two bright and beating hearts that spin together, a trailing red ember that moves in their wake.

"I-- I'm sorry--"

Aziraphale snatches his hands away, but Crowley cradles the broken star with a startled smile on his face, watching the way it spins.

"I like this one," he says, darting a glance at Aziraphale that is as warm as the heat of his hands. "Think I'll put it close by."

* * *

The brand new world is green and blue - far more green than blue. It isn't right, Aziraphale thinks, it should be blue, blue as lapis lazuli, blue as forget-me-nots.

(What has he forgotten?)

They stand together on a balcony overlooking the workshop, watching this thing called Earth take shape.

"They say it's going to last six thousand years," Crowley says. "That's a long time for a lump of rock."

"It's not long enough," Aziraphale whispers. His eyes are stinging. "There should be more water... so much more water, lakes and seas and oceans..."

"A new Heaven, and a new Earth," Crowley replies softly, sounding far away. "And there will be no more sea."

Aziraphale turns to him with a suddenness like he's falling.

"It isn't right."

"How can it not be right?" But there's a shadow in Crowley's eyes, a fidget in his clever fingers. "It's the work of the Almighty."

Aziraphale ducks his head, dizzy with doubt, sick with sorrow. He can't find the words to tell this tale in his heart, can't voice the cry that has been building and building within him since the Beginning (since before the Beginning?), can't make sense of the pieces that don't fit in his soul. 

_We stood on the shore, do you remember? The waves on the pebbles, the wind in the trees, a warm summer night. You took your shoes off and let your feet dangle in a rockpool as clear as crystal, and I thought about doing the same, but I was too afraid, always too afraid, and I turned away instead, and told you good night, and then it was another decade before we saw each other again..._

Fingers brush his jaw, lifting his chin, smoothing a thumb across the tear-track that has worn its way unnoticed down his cheek. Crowley steps close, very close, and Aziraphale sees it then in his face, the same maelstrom of loss, the same struggle to understand. He's just been far more practised for far too long at keeping such anguish hidden.

"I've been thinking," Crowley says, low and soft, hesitating as if he's afraid of being pushed away. "What you called me, when we first met. Crowley?"

Aziraphale nods, lost in his eyes, wanting more than he has ever wanted, than he could ever imagine he wanted, and yet he knows this wanting like he knows his own name, has learned to wear it like armour and hide it like shame.

"I sort of like it," Crowley says, and his fingertips are still on the line of Aziraphale's jaw, and Aziraphale fancies he can feel the stardust worn into their grooves, caught under the nails. "It's not a very angelic name, though, is it?"

"No," Aziraphale replies, aching from his toes to his wingtips, "I suppose not."

"But I like it anyway. I might... try it out. Just to see, you know. Just to..."

He trails off like he doesn't understand his own thoughts well enough to speak them. He doesn't have to. Aziraphale knows that yearning, that search for the right shape, the right place, the right name for things.

"Crowley," he murmurs, and Crowley sighs, and closes his gold-glimmer eyes, and his wings tremble like a faltering flame.

"What is it? What's missing?" Crowley whispers, eyes still closed, hand drifting down to Aziraphale's shoulder. He's no longer giving comfort, he's seeking support, seeking strength. "What have we lost?"

"Everything, I think," Aziraphale replies, the truth of it like a knife sliding home in his heart, and Crowley shudders, and steps away, and the lack of him is worse than the knife.

"Why?" Crowley asks. He turns his face upward, towards the highest tower in the silver city, the place of the Throne and the Presence, and there is an anger in his eyes that fills Aziraphale with sudden terror. "Why?"

"Don't ask," Aziraphale pleads. "Don't ask those questions."

Crowley looks at him, sunset-fire hair falling over his shoulders, hardness and softness and sorrow in his gaze.

"I can't not," he says.

* * *

In all of Heaven and all of creation there is no angel as beautiful as Lucifer Morningstar, and yet whenever Aziraphale sees him striding through the halls, he quakes at the knees and can hardly stand to look at him. There is a straightness to his back, a lift to his chin, a light in his eyes that only burns brighter now the sun has risen for the first time.

Crowley hasn't stopped complaining about the sun since the first morning of the world. What's the point, he says, of all that work on the stars if you can't even see them for half the day? If they'd _told_ him about the sun, he'd have put less work into it, just tossed off a few million identical galaxies, not like anyone would notice.

Aziraphale didn't know angels could lie. He doesn't know if Crowley even realises he's doing it, if he knows himself well enough to know that he couldn't have put less than everything into his craft. If he knows himself as well as Aziraphale knows him.

Lucifer Morningstar looks upon his fellow angels, and in his star-bright eyes there is pride and doubt and anger, and when Aziraphale looks at Crowley, he sees a reflection that haunts his every step.

"Trouble's coming," Crowley says, as they watch Lucifer move among the Seraphim and the Cherubim, no longer simply watching them work, but giving instructions, changing the details of their creations.

"Stay out of it," Aziraphale pleads.

"And if I don't?" Crowley asks, and it's not a challenge, even though he clearly means it to be. It's more like a plea of his own. "Will you forsake me?"

Aziraphale closes his eyes, and though he's flown on white wings since the Beginning, known only Heaven and Heaven's grace, he understands what falling feels like and how very far down there is to go.

When he opens his eyes, Crowley has already turned away, his shoulders and wings tight with pain.

"Wherever you go, I'll follow," he says, and Crowley spins back around to face him, eyes so wide and mouth so wondering that Aziraphale almost laughs through his tears. "Did you think I would say anything else?"

* * *

There are rumours rushing through the ranks of the Host. Whispers of a new thing the Almighty is about to create, a thing called _humanity_ , beings like but unlike the angels themselves, beings who will inherit all of this carefully crafted world and its wonders.

 _Why?_ The question is on more lips than Crowley's now. _Why shouldn't we be a part of it too? Why should we labour so, only to hand this gift over to those who come after us?_

 _Because_ , Aziraphale wants to reply, _we are like fixed stars, unchanging in the heavens, and they are like mayflies, they flicker and fade, and they have so, so much to teach us._

He remembers the feel of paper under his fingertips, the smell of old books, the lustrous curl of black ink. He remembers a stone tablet, carved with the memory of a soul long departed, with prayers and praise and promises. He remembers the sound of singing, drums in the dark, an epic passed down from generation to generation, a story of love and loss.

He remembers an apple, glistening with dew, freshly picked.

There is still so much work to be done, so many finishing touches, but they find time to slip away from their duties all the same. They go to the edges of the silver city, the liminal strand where reality wears thin, and they walk beside it as if they might catch a glimpse of something there, a deep-sea creature made of memories, a wave that washes away their doubt.

"Oysters," Crowley says, a strange expression on his face. "What about oysters?"

"Oysters?"

"Sort of... slimy things in shells. Live in salt water. You can eat them."

"I haven't seen them on the list. There's not all that much salt water to go around."

"They make me think of you."

"Should I take offense?" Aziraphale says lightly, smiling, but Crowley whips around as if stung, seizes his hand.

"No, angel, you don't understand, they make me think of--"

He trails off, the words abandoning him as they always do, his hand gripping Aziraphale's with an urgency that almost hurts.

"They make me think of you, and..." He closes his eyes, doesn't let go of Aziraphale's hand. "Of... so many things..."

Aziraphale lets himself be drawn closer, gravity tugging him endlessly, effortlessly, so close there is barely a space between them, one more hairsbreadth and their bodies would touch. _Angel_ , he thinks, what a strange thing for one angel to call another, and yet the way Crowley's voice curled around the word filled it with so _much_ that it leaves Aziraphale breathless.

Crowley opens his eyes, looks into Aziraphale's, golden gaze haunted, helpless, hopeful. Aziraphale lifts his free hand to stroke Crowley's cheek, cups his jaw, and brings their mouths together.

He shouldn't know what to call it, but he knows what a kiss is, knows how long he's wanted it as Crowley falls into him, hands clutching at Aziraphale's back. Too long, more time than there should have been since the Beginning, time all tangled up with quiet afternoons and gentle breezes and the way his heart lifts when he hears Crowley's voice across a crowded room. He leans into Crowley as if he could wrap them both in a world that doesn't exist, as Crowley's wings close around them, for a moment in shadow, for a moment as dark as they should be.

From the silver city, trumpets sound. A cacophony, a dissonance that has never been heard in Heaven. They break apart, but still cling to each other, fingers tangling in cloth, heads turning towards the sound.

"It's starting," Crowley says. "We'd better get back."

They could fly, but they walk instead, as if delaying by even a heartbeat could buy them more time. Halfway there, Crowley takes Aziraphale's hand, laces their fingers tight.

* * *

There is panic in the halls, talk of choosing sides, words of war and weapons. They cross paths with Samael and some of his pack, all girded in gold, all carrying silver blades.

"Lord Lucifer is in the Great Hall," Samael tells them, burning with righteousness, with certainty. "He says it is time for the Almighty to answer our questions."

"Yes," says Crowley, "I think it is."

A wave of dizziness sweeps Aziraphale like the tide, a vertigo so profound it is like gazing into the abyss. He grips Crowley's hand tighter to keep from falling. But as Samael and the others turn to go, Crowley doesn't move. He looks at Aziraphale instead.

"You said you'd follow me." The slightest upward lilt, the barest breath of a question. "Wherever I go."

"I did. And I will."

"Will you walk beside me instead?"

Aziraphale nods. And Crowley turns them both aside, away from the crowds and the shouting and the anger, away from the Great Hall, through a maze of corridors, abandoned workstations, discarded harps, to a slender staircase that winds up from a forgotten courtyard. Aziraphale tries to see how high it goes, but he cannot crane his neck far enough.

They could fly, but they walk instead, climbing the slender silver staircase step by step by step. From below they hear the first clashes of steel on steel, the first cries of pain. A sense of pressure, as of great, black, impossible wings unfolding.

"Azrael awakens," Crowley says. "Behold, creation's shadow."

It's pooling like ink around the feet of the silver city, darkness seething with desires and fears and desperations that have yet to be named. This is Death, Aziraphale thinks, and in its depths he sees something like stars, except he knows, to the very core of him, that they are not stars, and that he will never know exactly what they are.

"Where are we going?" he asks, though he knows the answer by now. They are above all but one of the towers of the silver city.

"To get some answers," Crowley replies, and as if that had been a signal, they round the last curve of the staircase, and find themselves before the doors that never open.

"Should we knock?" Aziraphale breathes, awed and afraid and unable to look away.

Crowley looks at the doors, and then, with a sudden twist and lunge, he kicks them open. If it hurts his bare foot, he doesn't flinch. They step inside.

There is an immensity contained within the highest tower, a space so vast it dwarfs the universe outside, as if this were, in fact, the real _outside_ , as if the universe in all its majesty is but one room of a larger house. There is a Throne, as Aziraphale has always known there would be, but there is no Presence.

There is only a boy, sitting on the steps that lead up to the throne, curly hair like a halo about his head, watching them enter with ancient eyes.

"It's all just happenin' again, isn't it?" says the boy, his voice soft, far too weary for one so young. "They're fightin' each other."

"You could stop it," Aziraphale replies, uncertain of his own assertion. This is not God, he knows that beyond question, but he also knows, somehow, that the child has the power to rewrite the world. "You could make them--"

" _Make_ them." The boy ducks his head. "Yeah. I could _make_ them. I can _make_ anybody do anything. Like playing with toys. Acting stuff out. It's not the same as things being real."

"Adam," says Crowley, and Aziraphale startles, because yes, that is the boy's name, of _course_ it is, but how does he know, how does Crowley? "Adam, what did you do?"

"I tried to fix it," Adam replies. "I thought maybe, if we started again... went right back to the Beginning... maybe we could do it all over, do it right this time. Make it better for everyone. Not just humans. You two, as well. And all of them--" 

He waves a hand towards the open door, the distant sounds of battle.

"Thought maybe I could make it so there were no more gangs," he says. "Just one side, for everybody."

"There's seldom only one side to anything," Aziraphale says, aching with understanding, with the slow billowing of memory. "And that's not always a bad thing. Without light, you'd be lost in the dark. Without darkness, you'd be blinded by the light."

"Without disagreement," Crowley adds, "you don't get new ideas."

Adam nods.

"I never much liked playing with toys," he says. "I always liked playing with friends better."

He stands up then, comes down the steps towards them. 

"I think I'd better put it back how it was," he says. He looks at their linked hands. "I'm sorry."

"Don't be," Aziraphale says. "Just because there are two sides, doesn't mean we have to be on either."

Suddenly, in his free hand, he's holding a sword, a weight he remembers, a grip that is familiar. Crowley lifts a strange metal tool, bent at right-angles. He looks different already, black tips to the feathers of his wings, the ghost of a serpent tattoo under his ear. Aziraphale remembers tartan and satin and the pleasure of a really well-fitting pair of shoes. 

He remembers the low clouds in the sunset sky and the scent of warm, rain-soaked tarmac, and the shaking of the ground beneath his feet. He looks at Crowley. Crowley meets his eyes. His hair is short now. His pupils are slit. His wings are the colour of night. He's still so beautiful, it tears Aziraphale's heart open with words he cannot fit his tongue around.

They let go of each other's hands. Adam steps between them. Crowley looks at Aziraphale for one last second, then he's swinging the tyre iron like a pendulum, and time whirls around them, and everything dissolves into silver light.

* * *

The hall of the Royal Opera House is red and gold and velvet and hardwood, chandeliers scattered like stars, angels carved in gilt and cream. It's thronged with people, laughing, talking, making use of the interval to visit the facilities.

They lean on the balustrade of their private box, watching the bustle, listening to the hubbub of humanity. It's a decadent end to a day that has already included lunch at the Ritz, but Aziraphale feels no shame in embracing decadence. Not today, at least.

"How much do you remember?" Crowley asks, sideways glance behind the dark glasses, eyes too yellow to be called gold.

"Bits and pieces," Aziraphale replies quietly. In the crowd below, a teenager is slouched in her seat, pointedly absorbed in a book. Dragged along by parents, determined to let everyone know she doesn't want to be here. Not her kind of music, this, not the sort of melody that will lift her heart and drag her soul along behind it. That's all right. There are so, so many songs now. So many more still to be written. "It's a little like a dream."

"I've had better dreams," Crowley mutters, and leaves unspoken, _and I've had worse._ "I'd... forgotten. What it was like, back then. The whole... full... force of it."

"Yes," Aziraphale says, gaze drifting briefly to the dome above the auditorium. "So had I."

A pause, the rise and fall of conversation like waves on the shore.

"Told you the music was crap," Crowley says, and Aziraphale laughs, and something breaks free in his chest, and he knows again what falling feels like.

He puts his hand over Crowley's, there on the balustrade, and when Crowley startles and shoots him a questioning glance, he only makes sure to twine their fingers more tightly.

"Wherever you go," he murmurs, and feels a tremor run through Crowley to the tips of the wings he doesn't have.

The orchestra begins to warm up for the next act. The audience starts to filter itself back to its appointed seats. The teenager continues to squint at her book even as the lights go down and her mother scolds her. Aziraphale smiles, and arranges things so that the next time she turns on the radio - or whatever young people do these days - she'll hear a song that will shake her and shape her and stay with her forever.

"What if I go wrong?" Crowley whispers, barely a breath, barely words at all.

Aziraphale turns to him, tugs at him, rests their foreheads together, breathes him in.

"Then we'll find our way back together," he says.

**Author's Note:**

> Heavily inspired by Neil Gaiman's "Murder Mysteries". Title is from "The Lady of Shalott" by Tennyson (but you knew that). Siken is rapidly becoming cliche for this fandom but it was too perfect.
> 
> 'Firien' as a name for Crowley is my own invention (though I stole the name itself from Tolkien). It's always been important to me that Aziraphale and Crowley weren't _significant_ in either Heaven or Hell, that they were just the nobodies on the front line, never mentioned in the religious texts, and so I prefer to give Crowley a made-up name, just as 'Aziraphale' is not a 'real' angel name.
> 
> The triple star they create together is, of course, Alpha Centauri.
> 
> Update 26/06/19: edited to give Crowley his proper name throughout, as it wasn't sitting right with me in the first few scenes. That's what I get for posting in haste. :P


End file.
